The Hike

This was taken from some writing I did the evening of 9/9, the night of my Rainier hike.

Got a late start today, and had a bit of a wrangle with the GPS, which took me through a bizarre maze of suburbia before finally leading to the highway, then led me to do some truly inexplicable things like exit the highway only to re-enter it immediately. And it was really unhappy with me about the route I chose to take and kept chirping at me about it, so - "F you GPS, you're going in the glove compartment." Which actually felt kind of good.

As I approached Rainier, I realized that I might not have enough time to drive down to the Paradise trailhead, and so made the impromptu decision to hike Sunrise instead. The drive itself was pretty incredible - I'd round a corner to face what appeared to be a vertical wall of evergreens. The road is carved into some truly fantastic landscape.


And the hike was awesome, of course. After a small inner debate, I opted to go for one of the "strenuous" hikes: not too long, distance-wise, but pretty steep at parts, with 1000 feet of elevation handled in just over 5 miles, and starting at 6,700 feet. After the first half mile or so, which was one of the most sustained steep inclines of the whole hike, I got over my "man, you haven't hiked at altitude for a while!" feelings, found my rhythm, just took in the landscape and communed with it.







Met some kind people - a senior citizen in the parking lot who was fascinated by my camelback; a father and son who make annual trips to Ranier from Seattle (credit the father for that photo of me); a through-hiking couple whom I was able to help with directions (!) and a couple of guys who may or may not have been stoned whom I wasn't.





Faced a couple of along-the-way decisions of the "do I take the short route back? do I extend this hike"-variety, and one or two "wait - am I still on the right trail??" moments. I was on the right trail, I kept going, and I did extend the hike a little, though not by much. The most significant crossroads came at the spot where I met the couple I was able to direct. Could have gone with them through the backpackers' campsite, which would have been a fine hike, if slightly foreshortened. Or I could make what was visibly a pretty steep ascent and continue around the Burroughs Mountains. I went for it, and it was definitely the most challenging & rewarding part of the hike. The landscape was tundra, very rocky and rugged, only the hardiest vegetation. Very very cool, but this was when I started really feeling it in my legs. It was an almost 3/4 mile climb, followed by a mellow stretch and then by a not-quite-as steep descent. The views all along were spectacular and stunning, but this was also the part of the hike where I felt the solitude the most. This was by far the rockiest and most hazardous part of the trip: a good chunk of the descent was a narrow (3'-4') path bordered by loose rock and leading to an extremely steep decline of nothing but jagged rock. Not good for those suffering vertigo: "one false move could really ruin your day" territory. Slipped on a loose rock and realized that I'd be in for a rough time if I had a fall or even pulled a muscle at this point.

Looking up from the trail:


Looking down:


Knocked- down sign:


Greenest lake ever:


I reached a spot with a short wall built on a curve - fantastic view/photo op. So, shoot I did, including a timer shot of moi.








When I got going again, I checked the time. Holy crap! 10 to 5. A good 20 or 30 minutes later than I'd thought it was, and I still had... well, I wasn't quite sure how much longer I had. But I knew I wanted to make it to the campsite well before sundown, as I'm not exactly the most experienced camper out there.

Number of times I've gone camping alone: Zero.

So I picked up the pace (easier once I got to some more earth-like ground) and kept the camera shouldered. May have missed afew good shots along the way, but I got plenty of images. The final what turned out to be about a mile & a half went very swiftly, and I came into the parking lot feeling very alive.

Pacific Past Posting

Here's an entry I wrote the other day (September 9), but didn't post because, well, you'll see when you read it.

I feel like there has been an angel of good fortune following me around since I've been here. Not only has the weather been, oh, perfect, but my hosts have been kind and generous (not a surprise there, but still a very nice element of the trip), and on several occasions I've had the experience of wondering where to find a thing, and then turning around and having it be RIGHT THERE. "How hard will it be to get those half-price theater tickets? Oh, the booth is right there." "I wonder where that club is where that band is playing? Oh, what do you know - right there." "I'm kind of thinking it might be fun to go see the Yankees play the Mariners while I'm here. Huh? You have an extra ticket for a great seat that you want to give me for free and all I have to do is go with your kid whom I kind of love anyway? Um, ok."

So, I wasn't even surprised when something as simple as an impossible parking space turned up - imagine wanting to just dash into, I don't know, the M&M store in Times Square, and as you pull up to it, there's a spot where you can park for an hour (again, for free).

Very quick rundown of some of what I've done since I've been here:

• Brief driving tour of city upon my arrival
• Lunch with the Simonds/Holmes clan
  
• Pike Brewery & Pub with friend from the dayjob who lives out here
• Show at the Intiman Playhouse
  
• Delicious breakfast in very funky neighborhood with Amy, more driving tour (including aforementioned parking luck at touristy but awesome fish market)
  
• Baseball game with Reuben
• Eating of best grilled salmon EVER with Young and Simonds clans
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at Showbox
• Kayaking Lake Union
• Rented a car ("Oh, if you want to upgrade from this Kia station-wagon-looking-thingy, you can have this Prius for an extra 6 bucks a day.")
  
• Sushi with Lauren
• Slumber Party at the Youngs'

And now I'm on day four. Heading to Rainier. ("Oh, don't you want camp rather than stay in a hotel? Didn't bring gear? Brian has a garage full of the best gear available, and he likes nothing more than going through it with you, telling you more than you thought you needed to know, and loaning you everything you could possibly want and then some.")

Writing this down, I actually am staggered a little bit. And don't want to jinx anything, so I think I'm not going to post this until my trip is finished (it would really suck to end up as one of those front page articles: "New Jersey Idiot's Luck Runs Out on Mt. Ranier")

So now I'm back in the 'boken. Wiped pretty well out, but feeling good. Much more to come on the PNW front...